“Ha!” said Considine with contempt. “I don’t think much of this huntin’ they have in England. Why, I knew a chap that couldn’t ride in timber a little, and he went to England and hunted, and d’you know what he said? He said he could have rode in front of the dogs all the way, if he’d have liked. But the owner of the dogs asked him not to, so he didn’t.”
“I suppose I could take Maggie and Lucy there,” he went on, looking doubtfully at his hearers. “They wouldn’t mind a chap havin’ a couple of black lady friends, would they? Yer see, they’ve stuck with me well, those two gins, and I wouldn’t like to leave ’em behind. They’d get into bad hands. They’re two as good handy gins as there is in the world. That little fat one—you start her out with a bridle and enough tobacker after lost horses, and she’ll foller ’em till she gets ’em, if it takes a week. Camps out at night anywhere she can get water, and gets her own grub—lizards and young birds, and things like that. There ain’t her equal as a horse-hunter in Australia. Maggie ain’t a bad gin after horses, but if she don’t find ’em first day, she won’t camp out—she gets frightened. I’d like to take ’em with me, yer know.”
As he spoke the two moleskin-trousered, cotton-shirted little figures passed in front of the hut. “There they go,” he said. “Two real good gins. Now, as man to man, you wouldn’t arst me to turn them loose, would you?”
Carew looked rather embarrassed, and smoked some time before answering.
“Well, of course,” he said at last, “they’d put up with a good deal from you, bein’ an Australian, don’t you know. Fashion just now to make a lot of fuss over Australian chappies, whatever they do. But two black women—rather a large order. You might get married over there, and then these two black ladies—”
He was interrupted by a startled exclamation from Considine. “Married!” he said. “Married! I forgot all about my wife. I am married!”
“What!” said Charlie. “Are you married?”
“Yairs. Married. Yairs! Should just think I was.”
“Not to a lubra, I suppose?”
“Lubra, no! A hot-tempered faggot of a woman I met at Pike’s pub. I lived with her three weeks and left her there. I haven’t seen her this six years.”